This is Bob Myers from the Historical Society of Michigan with a Michigan history moment. How sweet it is. Michigan today ranks fourth of all the states in sugar beet production. We owe that distinction to Joseph Seaman of Saginaw and Dr. Robert Kedzie. In 1884, Seaman, a printer from Saginaw, sent some sugar beet seeds home from Bohemia. They found their way to Robert Kedze, a chemistry professor at Michigan State Agricultural College, now Michigan State University. Kedze saw the potential in sugar beets and imported 1500 pounds of seeds from Germany to distribute to farmers. Michigan's thumb area had by then exhausted its timber resources and residents were looking for a viable agricultural crop. They started growing sugar beets. A processing plant opened in Essexville in 1898. Michigan's first beet sugar campaign processed 32,000 tons of beets, and industry was born. Growing sugar beets was hard work. Farmers had to thin the sprouting plants, which they did by crawling on hands and knees. Harvesting was done by hand, too. Farmers pulled the beets out of the ground, pounded them together to knock off the soil, cut off the leaves, and then loaded them onto wagons and trucks. It was tough work, but the beets paid well, and the state of Michigan offered a bounty on them. Farmers that could do the work themselves without hiring labor found that sugar beets provided welcome supplemental income. Some farmers referred to their sugar beets as mortgage payers. In 1898, the Cairo Sugar Company was founded. With a little luck at the poker table, a Cairo businessman, Charles Montague, had secured some financial backing, but not enough to start a new sugar company. He invited some wealthy Detroit capitalists to Cairo for a meeting and got into a friendly poker game at his hotel in downtown Cairo. They played cards all night. By the next morning, Montague arose from the table with enough money and pledges to start the Peninsular Sugar Refining Company. In 1906, Henry Havemeyer, owner of American Sugar Refining Company merged Peninsular Sugar Refining with five other companies to form the giant Michigan Sugar Company. Today, Michigan Sugar Company is one of the largest sugar manufacturers in the United States. You'll find its products on the grocery shelves under the Pioneer Sugar and Big Chief Sugar brand names. A sweet part of Michigan history. This Michigan history moment was brought to you by michiganhistorymagazine.org.